tv Special Building Inspection SFGTV December 15, 2020 6:30am-7:06am PST
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happening. we saw it with the super bowl l. we saw it with the san francisco city hall centennial. we seen it with the conference of mayors meeting in san francisco. all of those were one-time nonprofit set up by the mayor and by his appointees and staff. it's not any secret to the people of san francisco that this is how the game is played here. for us to pretend it's not played that way, not addressing it is wrong. in my view. >> i like to understand better under the proposed rule of prohibiting officials and employees from soliciting from interested parties.
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taking your example of whatever, the america's cup, this would prohibit or for that matter, the mohammed nuru investigation. this rule would prohibit city officials elected or appointed and employees from soliciting from interested parties from the ecology or other entities that have contracts. at least on that point, i'm going to assume that somebody is going to be prepared to make a motion to recommend that we move forward with communicating that commission endorses that change.
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commissioner bush, your point about who the -- i'm trying to think, on the america's cup, if they put people from the city in charge of that -- i guess it was a nonprofit they educated, just the ones behested, it's not just restricted source. are you saying they shouldn't be able to behest payment to a nonprofit if the mayor controls the nonprofit. i'm trying to figure how you would articulate the regulation that would address the concern that you have? >> there's couple of ways getting at it.
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one will be to say, they can't solicit contributions more than $5000. we have some cases where a party was contributing $500,000. one case actually $1 million. it doesn't have to be a contractor. it can be like wells fargo loss of lobbying the city not to divest itself but using wells fargo as an investment bank. that's not a contract. that's a policy question that was going on. same thing with waterfront properties. they want to build high-rise market rate condo on the waterfront, they gave several hundred thousand dollars during this process. tough to -- you have to write it in such a way that it will take
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someone with legal skill, that it's clearly intended for a public good and not simply for the politician's good. >> chair ambrose: this once again in a lot of ways comes back to the top. we wouldn't -- if we had a clear culture where where it was understood that there was no pay to play or favoritism to the money interest who your favorite charity, then we wouldn't have to be writing new rules to fix
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it. i hear what you're saying and i'm not sure how you direct that. >> i havi'm cautious about overg the word charity. if you have nonprofits that provide services to low income people or services in the community, they are providing direct services. that's different than being an advocacy group. like spur, for example, is an advocacy group and does not do any services. unless you want to count their research project. otherwise, they are not a service oriented nonprofit. in some jurisdictions, i looked at in the past, they do make a distinction like in los angeles, where the payments cannot go to groups that do not provide services to low income people.
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>> chair ambrose: really just to low income people, not people who have other kinds of disabilities? that seems -- >> that's the way they've written their law. on the other hand, the fbi is in the middle of investigating behested payments in los angeles. it may not be a perfect solution. >> chair ambrose: okay, i'm a little bit -- >> the mayor in los angeles established mayor's fund which brings in millions of dollars a year. it's probably one of the wealthiest entities in los angeles. it exist to fund things that the city does not fund and the mayor wants done.
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>> chair ambrose: i'm just looking, commissioner lee, is commenting about many nonprofits, direct service advocacy organization such as you pointed out. i think that's one of the alternative ways of looking at this. having really strict rules and having certain waivers. then you have to start parsing it out and describing the standard of review for determining when it's okay for somebody to solicit donation because whatever, the general consensus is that's a good organization and a legitimate solicitation as for those in interest not direct service oriented organizations, some people feel very strongly say,
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for example, one of the things i'm thinking about are former controller public utilities commissioner ed harrington has recently been on the board of green peace. cares greatly about climate issues across the world and probably strongly advocating donations to address global warming. that's not a direct service organization.
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we do not want anyone in city government to be soliciting behested payments from restricted sources. we've seen from the indictment that has a particular negative task to it and that there's no -- anyway, i think we have consensus on that. in order to move forward, i want to ask if we have motion and actually, i do want to -- you
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just check and make sure commissioner lee. she did say that she thinks that she agrees that direct service and advocacy nonprofit organizations should be subject to the same rules. thawhat i want to do, we still e a heavy agenda. i will take a break after we get public comment. i want to see if we have some motion. do i have a motion -- >> do i clearly understand that commissioner lee position is that direct service organizations and advocacy groups should be treat thed the
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same? >> chair ambrose: she did say that specifically. it should be the same in terms of being a recipient. >> you take a group like spur, it's a nonprofit. it's an advocacy group on various city policies. it also has its chair or executive director acting as a campaign manager. in fact, three committees -- there's a cross connection there that raises a certain level of questions i would think. >> chair ambrose: spur activities as a nonprofit and
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whatever, the engagement in land use and related issues in their educational gathering. i don't know what they are doing now in covid. it's separate. their executive director may be a very political person and have a job -- that's sort of interesting. executive director of spur. i don't know how they can have that much time in three ballot measures. that seem like something spur's board should be looking at. there's all kinds of advocacy. not just spur. every industry group in the city that is an advocacy group that supports them. you start getting into the union organizations and their
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nonprofit arms, etcetera. if you say you can -- if you're an employee of the city, you can on the solicit a gift to nonprofit that's a direct service organization and not an entity that gauges in political advocacy, that's a pretty restraint on that person's political engagement, whatever their choices might be. as long as we all agree they can't ask anybody who's got a decision pending before them or their organization. in terms of restricting the source, i think that's what you're talking about, -- >> i'm talking about the recipient. not the source. >> chair ambrose: that's what i meant. if you're saying as a city
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employee, you can't solicit a gift from somebody who's not a restricted source to a nonprofit organization, unless they are engaged in direct service. you can certainly say that. i have a problem being that legislating that kind of constraint. i think that people, one of the ways people engage in their political life is by supporting organizations often nonprofit organizations that represent their interest concerns and views. >> i don't want to drag this on forever. i'm struck by recalling, behested payments that went to sister city committees from
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sources that otherwise could not make a contribution. it sister cities committee used the money to pay for the mayor to make trips overseas. that's one hand washing the other. there's no way around it. >> chair ambrose: to be clear on the disclosure front, i think that exposing who's been solicited and who the recipient is, it's illuminating to see the detailed disclosure report that mr. ford included. it was a list of who's who in san francisco world. it does allow you then to raise the kind of questions that you're raising about wheather or not there is people taking
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advantage of loopholes and enhancing their position in the world through the behested payments. question is, goes back to at the top, this is a question of legislating, ethical behavior. there's no restraint associated with these kind of regulations. >> there's nothing to prevent these people from getting money to the city. why don't you have somebody give it to the city and the city then allocates the money. they don't want to have to go through the process of seeing a budget and accountability for
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it? the america's cup use some city money and private money. why don't it all just go through the city? the city has -- the board of supervisors has to approve anything over $5000. it does not interfear with anybody's ability to do that. >> chair ambrose: i'm not talking about the america's cup, i'm just talking about -- >> i'm using it as an example. anyway you see my point. >> chair ambrose: it's not the second piece of this that would get to that. we're not saying that the mayor can't put his or her spouse in charge of the america's cup nonprofit and solicit gifts to them and source of income. you're talking about with
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respect to the first restricting sources. i'm still struggling how would you articulate where there are political or other advantage. you can define, you can't solicit money nonprofit that is source of payment to the elected official employee for their travel expenses. you start having to go through that whole litany to define those circumstances beyond just you can't ask for it. i'm going to go back -- i don't think this is the end of this conversation. i think we're going to take this in layers. i want to see whether or not we
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have public comment in the queue. i want to see if we have a motion in support for -- i guess i should ask quickly, pat, did you have any further information or comments that you want to make following this discussion before we ask for a motion? >> no. other than just to echo what you just said. part of the reason that i've separated this project into phases is so that we can continue to learn more and react and develop subsequent phases in the project accordingly. just echo that this is not the last opportunity. >> chair ambrose: with that, i do want to see whether or not we have a motion to support the
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recommendation for the first item solicitation behested payments from interested parties as mr. ford outlined in the staff report and with the understanding that this won't preclude us from augmenting our recommendations with respect to either the definition of interested parties or any exceptions to the solicitation of behested payments. do i have a motion on this first piece of it? nobody is ready to move this part forward. commissioner bush you had your hand up. i don't know if that was from
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previously? i think that we should allow pat ford to communicate to the board. that's really all we're doing here to communicate to the board that we do support at least at a minimum, this rule that we should restrict not just the elected officials but city officials and employees from soliciting behested payments from interested parties, interested parties defined as the city contractor, people soliciting permit licenses, people submitting proposals for a contract, registered lobbyists. with the exception being that these officers and department heads i'm assuming employees
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will be able to solicit monetary payments. i would make that motion that we allow him to communicate to the board, supervisor member who's initiating the legislation that the commission does think that's a good idea. >> may i add a friendly amendment to your motion? well-worn phrase that we often see. it's to say what you just said, including but not limited to. that allows us to come back and revisit things. >> chair ambrose: okay. w[dog barking]
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>> we recommend the following steps including but not limited to. >> chair ambrose: okay, i will accept that friendly amendment. that will be my motion. commissioner smith? >> commissioner smith: at some point, it sounded as though we were simply asking pat to give this concept of our approval forward and then commissioner bush started talking about a motion and an amendment and now it seems as though you switched to a motion. i'm not sure if you're tall making a formal motion that requires a second and if pat understands what the motion really is.
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if you are simply asking us to approve pat going back and saying that we, the ethnics commission, approves this concept of restricting behested payments, etcetera. would you clarify that for me please? >> chair ambrose: fair enough. frankly, we wouldn't necessarily have to make a formal motion and have a roll call vote in order to give our feedback to staff. i think in fairness to him, he wants to know when he engages with the supervisors, about what the position, ethics commission is, the clarity about support. i think what the motion is, with respect to his recommendations and the staff report, the item, the first item solicitation
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behested payments from interested parties, that our authorization to him is that he may communicate that we support these rules but we are not limited to further recommendations regarding the solicitation of behested paymented from interested party. his legislation will be amended and there will be public hearings. we'll bring this back in december for further discussion. as things stand now, we would authorize him to say that if we have the votes for this, we have moved to endorse this set of recommendations. is that clear enough?
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>> commissioner smith: that's helpful. pat do you understand? >> i think, this will be helpful to me and to the board to have some action from the commission to base their judgment on. >> commissioner smith: i will be willing to second that motion as stated in this last exchange. >> chair ambrose: i'm going to hold that motion. we still have to get public comment. i need to -- i want to get both of these up. the second recommendation is solicitation behested payment to an entity that is source of income for the official. this would be -- this is not in supervisor haney's current legislation but this would be recommendation that officials and employees would be prohibited from soliciting
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behested payments from any source to any entity that is a source of income for the official or the official's spouse. the officials include elected, members of board and commission and department heads as well as employee who are form 700 filers and income means any economic interest reportable in the form 700. do i have a motion with respect to this recommendation? none that i see. i already been clear that i'm not ready to go forward with this levelful recommendation until i hear a lot more in the
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public comment realm from people who themselves or spouses, whether they be employees or commissioners, provide some feedback about what that would mean for them and therapy engagement in civic life. i'm going to ask ronald to please determine if we have public comment in the queue. >> we are checking to see if there are callers in the queue. for those on wait, please continue to wait until the system indicate you have been unmuted. we are public discussion on the motion of agenda item 6, discussion on possible action on staff report of phase one
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government ethics and conflict of interest review behested payments. if you have not done so, please press star 3 to be added to the public comment queue. you'll hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. we have a caller in the queue. >> hi. thank you commissioners. this is debbie from the san francisco human services network and association of about 80 san francisco health and human service nonprofit. i want to commend the commission to address the recent corruption scandal. three years ago, we engaged with this commission around behested
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payments process that looked at elected officials and the commission and the board ultimately adopted a disclosure law rather than a ban. we see a process where our health and human service nonprofit with being caught up in something where we are not the problem. we continue to urge a careful nuance approach that is necessary to ensure that we don't hamstring the city's ability to support its nonprofit partners who are providing direct services and affordable housing particularly in the middle of a pandemic. the report that i just saw for the first time today, it would propose a major expansion of restrictions and we don't have a
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specific position. i think it needs a cautious look and we look forward to the ongoings discussion. the devil is always in the details with these things. what happens with public appeal, can an official be on the host committee. what about nonprofit boar boardf directors who will be classified potential parties when they are private citizens with motives to have volunteered their time and energy to support a nonprofit. i'm alarmed by this proposal to broadly describe as a restricted source anybody, any private citizen who expresses the point of view to an administrative official. that can be a letter to your supervisor or to department
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head. this seems extremely broad and ambiguous, i would urge this commission to take your time to really think these things out. i'm encouraged by some of the nuances coming out in the discussions today. thank you for that. we want to urge caution and not running full scale ahead to adopt extremely restrictive measures that can have unintended consequences. i want to say that our ethics laws are becoming more and more complicated and urge the ethics commission staff to reach out to contractors and apri provide trn and written material to help nonprofit contractors so they don't fall into details of these laws. that will also help tremendously with compliance. thank you.
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>> chair ambrose: thank you. that was helpful. >> we are checking to see if there's any more callers in the queue. please standby. there are no more callers in the queue. >> chair ambrose: with that, public comment is closed. i will ask you to call the roll on the motion that we had. i want to add, i did appreciate the comments from the person who just called in. i think it is something that we
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and the board are going to look at. we long been saying we need funding and resources to do more training and if we're going to layer on more regulatory requirements, then it's that much more important that we are able to help people understand what the rules, why they are there and how to comply with them. more reason to take more funding. with that t please -- please call the roll. >> could you restate the motion please? >> chair ambrose: okay. this would be a motion to authorize commission staff to represent to members of the board or public that we
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recommend at minimum including but not limited to the set of recommendations as we may have further refinements going forward, that city officials and employees are prohibited soliciting behested payments from interested parties. this would include city elected officials, members of boards and commissions, department heads, as well as employees who are form 700 filers, interested parties are going to include parties and participants involving permits licenses and entitlements for use and administrative enforcement, city contractors and i'm not going to define all of them. they are written in the staff report. there are three categories of city contractor who have existing or pending or submitting proposals for contracts. registered lobbyist and then finally alridgee all restricteds which includes
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